Entering the Tunnel

~ my wandering memory

Note: if you’d rather listen than read, scroll to the bottom for the video of this post.

To my Monday evening group, I offered this picture of a tunnel.

When I choose prompts, I’m looking for evocative images, poems that have an emotional valance, and ideas with both universal and personal possibilities. I’m not thinking about my own work or memories, but about ideas that have a broad potential. At the moment I offer suggestions for how the writers might approach any given prompt, it’s fresh for me as if seen for the first time. Invariably, I’m surprised by what I’m inspired to write. Which in itself, is a surprise.

Anyway, let’s see if you are inspired by this picture. Perhaps it evokes a memory or a scene for a story. What I’ll often suggest, especially to those new to the process, is to begin by describing what you see, and writing until the writing takes you into story, poem, or essay.

Have at it. I hope to read some of your pieces. There’s space in the comments.

---

The underground walkways in Rome smelled of piss and rodents. A hundred years of urine. It was safer, in some senses, given the number of traffic lanes and the speed at which Italians drive. One friend joked that the only way to safely cross a Roman street was to find a nun or a priest to walk with.

I used those walkways during the months I spent there in the 70s, but in recent visits, I don't recall ever seeing them. This is what I noticed: nothing is as I remember. Nothing. Not the streets I walked in 1976 where I examined every shop, every gallery, and every museum. In those days, one could just walk in, just like that. The shops had displays but nothing you could touch without asking specifically for that item in that size in that colour. In 1978, when I returned, the streets were new. Rome isn't that big and I imagine it’s been the way it is for many decades. What I’m trying to say is that it’s me.

When I returned in 2014, I strode through the streets, sure I would remember the Bernini where David and I stayed for one night only. When at last I found it, a burst of tears. I was sobbing, for Christ’s sake. It didn't look at all how I remembered it. Nothing. And the cafe on the hill where that winter afternoon a woman in furs with a tiny cup of espresso gave David such a look. A look that registered somewhere in his groin. All he needed was for me to say, go ahead. I didn’t. I couldn’t find the cafe although I was certain it was on that long, curving hill.

No more shingles indicating pensiones, those lovely inexpensive hotels that sometimes included a private bathroom. In 1976, I paid five to ten dollars a night, in 1978, it was fifteen to twenty-five, and in 2014 it was Airbnbs in Trastevere for a hundred dollars a night.

I’m aware that I am rambling and I seem to have lost the idea of tunnels, except that memory, too, is a tunnel. I don’t know what I want to say aside from acknowledging my faulty memory. How memory molds, stretches, and rearranges experience.

My sister and I lived in the same houses with the same siblings and parents, but every memory I share she corrects. Not like that. Not that colour, size, time, place. I tend to defer to her. She must know.

Cities do change, of course, they do, but what I'm trying to say is that I’d be less confused if I let memories slide. You know, live in the present. Let each moment be new, a wonder to behold. As it is.